


Anthem For Doomed Youth

by orsumfenix



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Broken Bones, Canon Compliant, Conversations, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 12:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21301937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orsumfenix/pseuds/orsumfenix
Summary: In the weeks leading up to his disappearance, Five breaks his arm.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves
Comments: 9
Kudos: 146





	Anthem For Doomed Youth

**Author's Note:**

> the scene where five runs out really gave me the impression that he'd talked about time travelling to reginald before so i ended up writing this bc i have zero self-control

Five is extremely annoyed and his arm is extremely broken.

The state of his arm is “nothing but his own fault”, “the result of tremendous stupidity” and “ha ha awesome can I sign your cast?”

Five glares in dismay at where Klaus has drawn a penis next to Vanya’s ‘Get well soon! :)’ It’s not even a good penis. The balls are too big. Trying to rub it out has done _nothing. _It’s just. There. For the whole world to see.

No wonder Dad won’t let him outside.

“This is horrible,” Five announces, realising in about two seconds he’s picked the worst time possible to do so. In front of the bed Vanya lowers the violin, face dropping. Shit. “Not your song. Your song’s really good. I meant my arm.”

“It can’t be that horrible,” Vanya offers, moving to sit opposite him. Her legs cross. The violin is put to one side. “It’s only for a few months.”

“A few months of agony,” Five mutters darkly, scowling at It. That’s right. His arm is an It now. “I can’t believe Klaus drew a dick.”

Vanya looks like she’s trying very hard not to laugh.

“He was trying to be funny,” she says. “So you’d cheer up. And I thought it didn’t hurt anymore.”

“It doesn’t. I was talking about mental agony.”

“I guess the dick didn’t cheer you up then?”

“Weirdly enough, no.”

“Maybe next time,” Vanya says, and finally lets out a giggle.

“It isn’t funny!” God, that’s his lips twitching. Gross. Five tries to school his face. “Anyway, Dad says I can’t go on missions with a broken arm, so I guess you’re stuck with me for six weeks. Good luck.”

“I don’t mind.” Vanya smiles, and he’s moody and annoyed and injured, but Five smiles back.

\--

Turns out when you’re right-handed and you break your right arm you can’t use cutlery very well. Go figure.

Diego snickers as Five drops his fork for the third time.

“Need some help?” he asks, pointing with his own knife. Five glares.

“Fuck off. This is your fault.”

Diego’s mouth is half open when Dad cuts in with a sharp: “No talking at the table.” It snaps back shut.

It _is _Diego’s fault. Well. It’s Five’s fault too, but publicly he’s blaming Diego. Diego didn’t have to agree when Five suggested he throw knives so Five could blink away at last minute as a ‘fun training exercise’. He didn’t have to hurl that one so hard Five teleported into the air and fell on his side. He didn’t have to laugh at the fact Five’s powers ran out right when he needed them to get safely to the floor.

He also didn’t need to freak out at the angle of Five’s arm and yell the house down looking for help. There’s a reason Diego is his least favourite.

Vanya silently picks up Five’s fork and holds it out to him. He doesn’t smile, but he does take it gently.

When everyone’s finished and they’re dismissed Dad clears his throat.

“Number Five, where do you think you’re going?”

“To my room.” Duh. Dad shakes his head.

“It’s your individual training day.”

“I’m injured.”

“Unless a broken arm stops you from teleporting, you still have to report to training.”

Five glares. His life would’ve been so much better if he got laser eyes instead of teleportation. Dad would be dead by now.

“Fine,” he bites out, storming over to the training room. He could teleport, but it doesn’t quite have the same flare. “Let’s just get this over and done with.”

“Happy Fiveday,” Klaus teases as he walks past. If it was possible Five’s mood gets even worse.

When Dad had the ‘ingenious idea’ of putting their individual training days in order of the week, it really fucked some of them over. Group training is Sunday, so whatever, but Monday is for Luther and Tuesday for Diego etc. Five got stuck with Friday. Which is shit. The others get to go play and he’s stuck almost passing out from too many jumps.

Klaus thinks his ‘Oneday, Twosday, Foursday, Fiveday, Sixurday’ joke is funny. It’s not.

Five walks into the training room and stops.

There’s a dog.

“That’s one cute puppy,” he says as Dad walks in behind him and locks the door. “But also what’s with the cute puppy?”

Dad takes a seat and frowns, opening that _fucking notebook_.

“Last Friday you were able to teleport carrying a large umbrella,” Dad informs, like Five is stupid and doesn’t remember what happened last week.

“I know. I was there.”

“I think it’s time you progressed to living things. I thought something small may be a good starting point.”

Five stares at Dad. Then he stares at the dog.

“You want me to teleport with the puppy?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“That’s the purpose of the exercise.” Dad spreads his hands, looking slightly more psychopathic than usual. “So we can find out.”

The puppy makes a little bark. Five internally names it Mr. Pennycrumb.

“No,” Five says. No thought happened here. “No way. I’m not doing it.”

Dad frowns. “Number Five, I thought you wished to progress with your powers.”

“I did. I do. I just -” He stares Mr Pennycrumb and can’t resist a smile. If Dad had let them have a pet their lives would have been so much nicer. “I don’t think I can carry it through and I don’t want it to get hurt.”

“I didn’t ask you what you want.”

Five stares at Dad. Dad stares back.

He hates him. Five’s not as moody as he comes across to Dad, he’s perfectly fine when he’s messing about with his siblings, but – Dad is the worst person in this house by ten straight miles. He sees the worst of Five because Five is always mad at him.

“I’m not doing it,” he says, fighting through the instinctual urge to just shut up and do what Dad says. “You can’t make me.”

Dad peers at his notebook and looks back up with an unimpressed stare.

“Number Five, your progress has stalled recently. This is the way to push forwards.”

“We’re supposed to help people,” Five snaps. “We’re _heroes_. We don’t murder dogs to test how strong we are.”

“Interesting,” Dad murmurs. “You think the dog would die?”

Five’s blood turns cold.

Of course Dad wouldn’t care if it hurt the dog. He’d just want to see the effects. He is, after all, an asshole. The dog could explode and Dad would just jot it down in his notebook with a disappointed hum.

“I -” His voice dies. Mr Pennycrumb blinks innocently up. There’s no right answer to this. There never is. ‘No’ would mean he’d have to jump. ‘Yes’ would mean Dad would push him to challenge himself and see if he could do it. ‘Maybe’ would be the worst answer of all.

Dad sighs and puts his pen down as Five is still fumbling for the right words. “I can see that you are distracted. I doubt we’ll get anything of use done today. I request that you send Number One in your stead. Perhaps he will be more competent.”

Five doesn’t miss his implication, clear as day, that he is not.

“What about the puppy?”

“Your mother will take care of it.” Dad isn’t looking at him. He probably won’t look at him until Sunday. “I’ve dismissed you, Number Five.”

It’s always the same with Dad. He leaves feeling numb, whether it be from physical exhaustion or the mental jumping jacks of constantly trying to prove that he’s better than Dad thinks. Do the others feel this way after personal training? Asking would mean admitting he hates personal training, which – he can’t.

Luther looks so pleased when he tells him what Dad said. Poor sod thinks it’s about Dad liking him and not Dad hating Five. It’s always about Dad hating Five.

\--

“Hey, Five? Did I mention that I love you? Like, you’re the best of us all. You’re so good. The whole teleportation thing? Wow. You’re so cool.”

“What do you want, Klaus?”

“Steal Dad’s whiskey for me.”

“No.”

“Please?”

Five looks up. Klaus grins down.

“Why would I ever do that?”

“Out of spite!” The thing about Klaus is that he’s very good at knowing exactly how to play Five. Those three words alone are almost enough to convince him. Almost.

“I thought you were into joints now,” Five snarks, going back to his book. Klaus shifts.

“I can like both. Hey, it’s kind of like boys and girls!”

“It’s not like boys and girls, because liking boys and girls doesn’t fuck up your body.”

“Gonna have to agree to disagree there.”

Five stands, tucking the book under his arm. “I’m not stealing Dad’s whiskey for you. Get someone else to do it.”

Klaus pouts. “But no one else can teleport! Come on, man, you’re the only one. But hey, if you think you can’t do it…”

Five looks away, hating how little it takes to get to him.

“I can do it. But last time I teleported I broke my arm. Why would I want to do that again?”

“Uh, to get out of training?”

“Goodbye, Klaus.”

Klaus sighs. “The amount of times people have said that to me…I can count it on one hand. It’s usually ‘Go away, Klaus’ or ‘Fuck off, Klaus’ or ‘Suck my dick, Klaus’. Maybe I should get a goodbye tattoo so I’m always one step ahead of those people. What do you think?”

It’s not that Five doesn’t like Klaus. He does. They get on better than some of others, that’s for certain. And Klaus is funny as fuck in interviews, he plainly does not give a shit and mostly spends the whole time making fun of Diego’s answers.

But Five is tired. His arm is broken and it’s going to stay that way for a while. He can’t go on missions. Feels useless. Embarrassed. Teleporting is his _thing_, and he fucked it up and now it’s plain for everyone to see.

Klaus is still grinning at him. Fucker.

“I’ll steal Dad’s whisky for you,” Five says. “You were right, I do want to spite him. He tried to make me kill a dog on Friday.”

“You mean Fiveday? Oh, dude, that’s fucked up.” Klaus pauses, bounces on the balls of his feet. So much energy. “_Did _you kill the dog?”

“Of course I didn’t, I’m not a monster! Besides, do you see a dog ghost running around?”

“Uh, no. Just some nanny with a snapped neck.”

Five isn’t touching that with a ten foot pole. He rolls his eyes, turning towards Dad’s study.

“Come on, then, let’s go get your booze. But if you die of alcohol poisoning, I take no responsibility.”

\--

When your siblings are on a mission and you’re not there isn’t much to do. There’s hanging out with Vanya, but she has a lot more violin practises than he realised, and there’s training but even that gets exhausting.

The library ends up doing a lot of work in alleviating his boredom. So many of Dad’s books are bullshit, but there’s a few gems that he’s annoyed Dad had the good taste to buy.

He works through the shelves from left to right, grabbing anything that catches his eye. It’d be nice if some of his other siblings were into reading, but unfortunately it’s just him and Ben and they have different tastes, anyways. Maybe if he was allowed to out and make friends he’d have someone to bond with books over, but that’s. Not allowed. _Horrendously _not allowed.

His fingers stop on a middle shelf. The book is small, dark, unassuming. It would be very easy to pass it by. But the title. The title’s what grabs him.

He pulls it out slowly. Stares at the cover. The plain font reading _The History of Time Travel._

\--

According to the book, space and time are linked. It’s like dimensions. Humans can walk through space, but they can’t walk through time. Not for lack of trying. They can’t because they don’t have the means yet.

But Five. Five doesn’t need to walk through space. He can jump. If he can take shortcuts through space then maybe – maybe he could twist them a little to bend through time –

It’s all he thinks about for three days. Their powers aren’t as singular as most people think, Klaus can hover off the ground when he tries really hard and Allison walks a fine line between guiding people’s wills and literally bending reality around her. (He dreads to think if there’s a Rumour she put on him that he doesn’t remember. The worst part is that it’s not that far-fetched.)

Space and time are linked. The words play on his mind.

Space and time. You can jump through space. Maybe you can jump through time.

\--

He does more research before going to Dad. The good thing is that he’s got a lot of time on his hands (ha, _time_), and a broken arm is only really bad for trying to carry heavy books from the library in the city he’s not supposed to go to. Vanya covers for him a few times, thinking it’s just regular sneaking out, until she confronts him during a lesson the others are on a mission for.

“I keep seeing you reading weird books,” she says, like this is news. “Is something going on?”

“Kind of,” he says. “What do you think about time travel?”

She frowns. “What do you mean, what do I think about it?”

“What are your opinions on time travel?”

“No one has opinions on time travel.”

“Wrong. I do. I’m sure Dad does. What are yours?”

“Uh.” Vanya doesn’t look sure how to answer. It’s fair enough. Dad hasn’t completely beaten her down, not yet, but it’s getting there. She’s stopped protesting when she isn’t in group pictures. Stopped greeting them when they come home from missions. “It’s cool, I guess? I’m not into weird stuff like that. I’m guessing you are.”

He makes eye contact. She needs to understand that what he’s about to say is completely serious.

“I think I could do it,” he says, and as soon as the words are out they take an even tighter grip on his heart. “I’ve been reading, and I think it’s like teleporting, but going through time instead of space. So that means I could.”

Vanya stares. Breathes.

“You think you can time travel,” she repeats, doubtful. “Isn’t that kind of – science-fiction-y?”

“What, and a bunch of kids being born to non-pregnant women on the same day isn’t?” She doesn’t think he can do it. He can see it in her eyes. “I know how it sounds, but I really think this might be something I can do. My powers are perfect for it.”

“Well, if anyone can it’s you.” Vanya isn’t the best liar in the world, but he appreciates the effort. “Are you going to tell Dad?”

In all honesty, he’s surprised Dad’s never brought the subject up before. Dad’s always encouraging them to push their powers further, to make Diego hold his breath for longer and Klaus commune with older ghosts. He should want this, right? He’s always going on about them saving the world. Time travel would be perfect for that.

“Oh, I’m going to tell Dad,” he says. “And he’s going to be super impressed.”

\--

“Absolutely not,” Dad says. Five glares.

“You aren’t even listening!”

“I am listening, and the answer is no. You aren’t ready.”

“Not ready,” he repeats, narrowing his eyes. “So you don’t think that I _can’t_.”

“That is not what I said.”

“It’s what you implied. You said I’m not ready. So you don’t think it’s my powers that’s stopping me.”

“You don’t even have permission to be in my office,” Dad points out. It’s true. The best thing about teleporting is that locks can’t keep you out. “I am working, and you are interrupting. Leave before I decide to inflict a punishment.”

Five glares, jumps to the stack of papers on Dad’s desk and pointedly tosses them on the floor. Immature? Yes. Satisfying? Extremely.

“What’ll it take to convince you?”

“I cannot be convinced.”

“Why not?” Five demands. “I’m trying to improve myself. You of all people should like that. What if I need to time travel to save someone’s life on a mission one day, huh? What if I can’t because you won’t let me try?”

Dad turns the page of some document he’s reading. Guy thinks he looks so uninterested, but his tense frame gives him away.

“Keep practising your spatial jumps, and you’ll have no need for time travel,” Dad says. “Pick up the documents, they’re extremely valuable.”

Five does not pick up the documents. Instead he scrapes a dirty shoe along the side of one. Dad twitches.

“This isn’t over,” Five says. His cast is starting to feel heavy. This conversation would be a lot less embarrassing without it. “I can do it.”

He jumps out of the office before Dad can get the last word. It’s a very neat trick.

\--

“That thing is so ugly,” Allison says, grimacing down at the cast. “How much longer, anyway?”

“Not that long.”

“Good, it’s making group pictures a nightmare.”

They took one the other day and made Five hide his arm behind Luther’s back. It was so humiliating.

“The group pictures are already a nightmare,” Five says. The problem is that Luther, Diego and Allison actually take them seriously. “We should all fuck up the next one on purpose, Dad’ll hate it.”

Allison raises a brow. “Do you do everything just to spite Dad?”

“Only most things.”

“One day he’s going to get sick of it, and you’ll be in a ton of shit.” She tosses her hair. “Well, more sick of it than he already is. I think the only reason you’re not his least favourite is because you can actually do useful things with your powers.”

Figures.

“I’m sneaking out to Griddy’s,” he offers, rolling his neck. “This place is boring. Are you coming?”

“I heard a rumour that I am,” Allison says. Hmm. Did she just – no, no she can’t have. She was just joking. Agreeing to something. He hates her powers sometimes, she didn’t even use them and because of the phrasing he’s stood here wondering if she did even though it’d make no sense. “They’ve got this new one with caramel in, I’m desperate to try it.”

That sounds right up Five’s ally. The sweeter, the better.

\--

When the day finally comes, Luther is the one to cut Five’s cast off with hands that barely shake. It’s painfully slow.

“Can’t you go any faster?” Five snaps. Luther glares.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Oh my god, just give them here!”

He goes to snatch the scissors but Luther pulls them back. Prick.

“I’m not risking you getting a scratch on your arm,” Luther says, like he thinks Five is stupid enough to scratch his own arm. In all fairness, he does kind of desperately want to rip the cast off, so. “Just hold still.”

“I am holding still.”

If anything, Luther starts moving slower. Five’s about to teleport away and finish the damn thing himself when Luther says, “Why do you always fight with Dad?”

“What?”

“You always argue back to him.” Is Luther going purposefully slow so Five has to sit here and listen to him? “The other don’t do that. I mean, Diego does, but you do it the most. I don’t understand why.” Of course Luther doesn’t understand why. It’s _Luther_. Loyal to a fault. Like a lap dog. Like the dog Dad wouldn’t have minded dying. “Is there something wrong?”

Five lets out a sharp laugh. Is there something _wrong? _Uh, maybe that Dad’s an asshole who won’t let him do what he wants?

“I’m dealing with it.”

“Right,” Luther says. “If it’s to do with your powers, I can help.”

“I really, really doubt that.”

“Why?”

Five looks him up and down. The scissors are going so slowly they might’ve actually stopped.

“What do you know about time travel?”

Luther frowns. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Five stares, waiting for Luther to get it. The moment he does is obvious, because the scissors take the last snip and the cast falls to the table.

“You think you can time travel,” Luther says. “Did Dad tell you you could?”

“He told me I shouldn’t.”

“Then you shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, right.” Five curls his wrist, testing his fingers one by one. Freedom at last. Something he wants more of. “I’m ready. I just need to ask him about it. Again.”

“If you’ve already asked, I doubt he’ll say yes.”

“Well,” he says, thinking it over. In front of everyone, maybe? That way Dad can’t just dismiss him without looking like he thinks their powers are bullshit. He could ask at breakfast, when Dad’s tired and groggy. “I guess I’ll just have to be more convincing.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Luther cautions. Five smirks.

Yeah, right. Like he’s the dumb one in the family. He’s done the research, he’s done the practise, he knows what he’s doing.

All that’s left is to convince Dad. And if he can’t?

Well. His powers are great for getting away.

**Author's Note:**

> thx for reading!! :)


End file.
